grace is just weakness (or so I've been told)
by imperfectandchaotic
Summary: It is 11:36 PM and the King is dead. [aka immediate finale aftermaths]


**Author's Notes:** Here are the thoughts I had from almost immediately post my viewing of the finale last week, which have taken me basically a week to get into a draft on my tumblr. We are sorely lacking in fic on the archive, so here we are! Come flail with me at elijahmikkaelson if you're feeling as devastated as I am.

RIP His Majesty King Simon.

You deserved better than a shitty wife and shitty brother.

We'll miss you.

* * *

( **liam** )

It's 11:36 PM and the King is dead.

Eleanor is all but collapsed in his arms. Liam takes in the oddly jarring sight of her personal guard (Jasper, right? Hadn't he been arrested?) in civilian clothing and feels his world tilt, sharper and harsher than anything else he'd felt in the past days, hours, or even minutes. Everything is different, now.

"Sir." Marcus' hand on his shoulder. Well, perhaps not everything. "Come with me."

His constant shadow over the past six years brokers no room for argument. Liam wraps an anchoring arm around his sister, who thankfully does not resist and just allows herself to be lead. He keeps his eyes on the steady line of Marcus' shoulders and feels, rather than sees, Jasper fall into step a measured two paces behind them.

The four of them wind through familiar palace halls; part of Liam's heart wants to stop and catalogue, to take stock of the place where his father said he took his first steps, the room where Robert had first beaten him at darts ( _who knows if they'll ever come back here again?_ ), but the rest of him just wants to get out and never return.

There is, after all, nothing here for them anymore.

Eleanor is still pressed against him, her face half buried in the crook of his neck; he wonders if she is hiding from the ghost of their father in every corner. Liam walks faster.

Marcus leads them through the tunnels and out to a small side road that Liam can't be sure he's ever seen before, where a dark car waits. They pause before it and Marcus turns to Jasper, expectation and gravity heavier than Liam has ever felt before hanging between them.

"Protocol 7," Marcus says, producing a set of keys from nowhere. "You know what to do."

Jasper nods once. The senior guard looks from him to their charges, and Liam is aware suddenly that none of them are the people they once were, even days ago. He is no longer a prince, Eleanor no longer a daughter of the blood, and Jasper certainly not her personal bodyguard. What will Marcus be, once he and Eleanor are gone?

Marcus' eyes sweep from Liam, to Eleanor, before meeting Jasper's again; the blonde lifts his chin and stands, almost imperceptively, straighter. "Be careful."

Jasper takes the keys – the sound of the car unlocking is like a cracking gunshot and Liam jumps – and climbs into the driver's seat. He starts the car before climbing back out again. Liam objectively understands that even in the midst of all this, Jasper won't get into the car until they do, but he selfishly wishes that these last few moments for who-knows-how-long with Marcus could be private and free of outsiders.

"Sir." There is a warning in it – who knows how long they have before Cyrus' men come looking for them – Liam ignores it. Eleanor sniffles and lifts her head; her eyes are red but her gaze is steady. Marcus takes a half-step back and bows before her.

"Princess," he says, solemn and sure, keeping her eyes at the sharp angle (that is a breach in protocol if Liam has ever seen Marcus commit one) even though her resolve clearly wavers. "It has been my honour to serve you."

Eleanor nods, blinking rapidly. Marcus hasn't even fully straightened before she shoots forward into his arms. To his undying credit, he doesn't even seem fazed.

"Don't do anything stupid," she says roughly. Marcus squeezes back once. Eleanor disappears into the car without another word. All three men hear her hiccup and pretend otherwise.

Liam faces his life's second-most constant companion and feels a kind of desperation claw at his throat. "If you try to bow to me, I will deck you."

Marcus' answering smile is nearly invisible.

"It has been a privilege," Liam says, struggling over the sharp pain in his chest, "to have been your charge." He swallows. "And your friend."

Marcus blinks, twice. "The privilege is mine, sir."

The ex-prince reaches out his hand, which his ex-bodyguard clasps for only a moment before Liam is dragging him forward. He thinks he might be squeezing too hard, but Marcus' grip almost hurts. "Be safe." Liam says, and Marcus steps back, nodding and blinking.

"You," Marcus says softly, "would have been the greatest of Kings." He puts a hand to his heart and inclines his head before Liam can stop him. "God speed."

Liam gets into the car before the burning in his eyes can get any worse, sliding into the passenger seat beside Jasper, who starts them silently down the path. Liam looks over his shoulder; Marcus is still saluting when they disappear around the bend. He turns forward to look at Jasper, whose eyes are lingering on Eleanor, curled up into herself in the backseat, nearly as much as the darkness stretched out ahead.

Liam wonders if he should ever ask.

"Where are we going?"

Jasper turns out onto an open space, his eyes flicking back to the looming shape of the palace. "I don't know yet."

The dashboard clock reads 12:06.

It is 12:06 AM and three dark shadows are leaving Palace Grounds in an equally dark car. No one speaks.

It is 12:07 AM and the King is dead.

They drive and drive – Liam does not look back.

–

( **len** )

It is 1:14 AM and the ex-(never?) royal children of the deceased King Simon are on the run with a man who may or may not be the son of Las Vegas grifters.

(Eleanor has yet to decide what she believes.)

It is 1:17 AM and they are still on the road – she hasn't asked yet where they're going (Jasper's jaw is working the way it does when he's stressed). Eleanor's eyes ache from crying, but adrenaline and unacknowledged emotion (despair? hysteria? relief?) rush to fill the gaping hole inside her chest.

It feels as though she may never sleep again.

"Is part of Protocol 7 'get us lost in the English countryside?'" Liam demands, not enough bite in it to elect any response from their driver. If anything, her brother just sounds exhausted. It's too dark to see much of the countryside anyway, but Eleanor keeps her eyes on the familiar edges of her brother's profile.

In spite of the shitstorm that is very much now their lives, Liam will always be safe and steady; Eleanor knows this just as surely as she knows that she is drowning.

Jasper keeps trying to catch her eye in the rearview. She looks away because she is not strong enough to hang on, just as she was not strong enough to take in the news of Robert's death in that shadowed and damp space without putting trembling hands on Jasper to keep herself standing.

Strange, she thinks, how he can be her chaos and her anchor both at once.

Eventually they stop, and it takes Eleanor a moment to make out the edges of a small house as it takes shape beneath the inky night. Even as they step out of the car into the cool air, she still feels the press of palace walls, and the grief, suffocating her.

"Wait," Jasper says, just before the threshold of the door. Exhaustion is making his accent slip; Eleanor wonders if Liam can hear it, or if she is just so attuned to the sound of Jasper's voice that any change is obvious.

She then proceeds to try not to think too much.

Jasper unearthes one of the guns he'd hidden in her room (she still needs to ask how long he'd hidden those things there without her knowledge – when had he decided that he knew her well enough that he was sure Eleanor would never find them?) and a key. He unlocks the door and signals silently for Liam to open it, holding up a hand in the dark.

 _Three. Two. One._

The door swings, but Jasper does not enter with a bang, as she had somehow expected. He is nothing but another shadow along the wall, so much so that Eleanor loses sight of him a moment before he reappears. His eyes are steady, but his jaw still works almost imperceptively.

"Clear," he says, and just for now, she can breathe again.

In the soft lamplight, they find themselves in a modest house, with soft, worn-in couches and pots hung above a kitchen island, and a single bedroom.

With a single (albeit queen sized) bed.

"We are not sharing," Liam declares, shooting her a fond look beneath the dark shadows under his eyes. "You are like an octopus when you sleep."

Jasper drops his bag with a thump. Eleanor does not look at him.

She clung to Liam, as kids, on long journeys and in strange places.

She clings – _clung_ – to Beck when she could, so full of the desire to be close to him that it was nearly more painful to do than not.

Eleanor does not cling to Jasper when they sleep.

She isn't sure if they've ever just _slept_ , anyway.

"Take the bed, Len." Liam nudges her gently towards the open bedroom door. "We're fine out here."

She looks at Jasper, next to said open door, who just slides upwards on the wall from a slouch until he's properly upright, feet apart, hands behind his back. He looks at her, quickly, and then back down at the floor. The sight is so familiar that her throat feels tight; Eleanor doesn't want to think about why.

She really doesn't want to think anymore, which is why it is several hours later and Eleanor is staring at a single white pill on the dark bedspread.

It is 3:46 AM and the King is dead.

It is 3:46 AM and Eleanor Henstridge is an orphan.

 _you have your drugs, your guys, and your darkness._

Stupid Beck and his knowing.

Two out of three isn't bad, right?

"You don't want that," says a soft voice in the dark. Eleanor just glares at the quilted pattern beneath her fingers.

"Don't tell me what I don't want," she hisses quietly, mindful, as Jasper is, of her brother snoring softly just beyond the doorway. Jasper's accent is still hanging on, barely, and for some reason that Eleanor doesn't understand, that is infuriating. "What are you doing here, Jasper?"

He moves slowly into the room; she can see the purposeful strides of his training even in the almost blue light. Jasper crouches at the end of the bed, and while Eleanor is sitting up against the pillows, the space feels so much smaller now.

He's looking at her hands when he says, "I'm trying to do the right thing."

 _So, sleeping with my mother?_ It's there on the tip of her tongue; Eleanor bites it back. Jasper looks at her then, and she can see it in his eyes – _I'm sorry_ – and she wants to recoil. _I'm sorry_ is bigger than either of them; letting him say it means acknowledging that there is in fact something between them, something _beyond_ ; accepting _I'm sorry_ is accepting the girl who allowed herself to be manipulated and controlled – Eleanor hates that girl even more than she could probably ever hate him.

 _How could you do this to me?_

But she'll never be able to ask.

"Why don't I want this?" Eleanor asks instead. She feels very small, looking from the pill she's picked up to Jasper, who crawls carefully up the bed towards her until his hand can cover her own.

There's a pause, as though he has to gear himself up to say whatever comes next.

"Because you promised him you'd do better."

–

( **jasper** )

It's only years of training that allow him to instinctively clamp down on the convulsing hand under his – and then Marcus' regular ass-kickings ("you need to be _better_. better than anyone. you protect his only daughter. remember that.") that allow his free hand to catch Eleanor's other arm as she moves to strike him left-handed.

 _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry–_

It feels as though he might choke on his guilt.

Jasper doesn't want to look at her – is too afraid, too ashamed – but her gaze is as magnetic as it's ever been and he is helpless against it.

Eleanor's eyes are full of tears. Jasper is aware of a crescendoing panic in his chest – _fix it you idiot this is all your fault –_ but he is too surprised to do anything before she leans foward, still trapped in his grip, and kisses him.

–

( **len** )

He kisses her back like it hurts him not to.

Jasper is more gentle than he's ever been, and that realization is so surprising that Eleanor is too stunned to hang on when he pulls away after only a moment and leans his forehead against hers.

"Eleanor," he says raggedly, all trace of his false voice gone. She shivers.

Has he ever called her by her first name before?

"You don't want me, either."

She knows she's crying but she doesn't care. Eleanor knows she's still caught, like a young animal full of tangled limbs, but there is something oddly reassuring about Jasper's strong hands, keeping her steady.

"Don't say it," she says, desperation and anger making her throat hurt even though she is barely whispering. "You are _not allowed_ to say you're sorry."

Jasper releases her, only to reach forward and tangle his fingers in her hair just behind her ears. Eleanor closes her eyes as he presses his mouth against her temple.

"Then tell me what you want me to do."

She looks at him then, afraid of what she wants to say. Jasper just brushes at her tears with the side of his hand and waits until she makes up her mind.

Eleanor drags him forward by the collar of his shirt, pulls at the hem until he pulls it over his head with one hand. Jasper pops the button of her pants without prompting, helps her carefully out of them, and then out of her shirt. He's wearing a second shirt beneath his first; Eleanor slides it over herself, breathing him in. It is the softest thing she's ever laid against her skin.

She crawls beneath the sheets and Jasper follows, as though he'd follow her to the very edges of the earth. He opens his arms wordlessly and Eleanor leans into the hollow of his throat, overwhelmed at what this could mean, at the stillness of her heart when Jasper's hands slide, calloused and sure, over her back and keep her there, their legs tangled.

Maybe it doesn't matter anymore.

"Stay," she says, trying to breathe the command into him. Eleanor may not be a princess anymore, but she still remembers how to wield power.

Jasper's grip tightens.

"Okay."

It should mean something, she thinks, that he does as she asks without question, that he came back to her after she blew them to pieces with the touch of a button, that she couldn't let go of them, even when handed the glittering stage to do so.

Jasper brushes his fingers through her hair, the gesture foreign and intimate and so unlike their usual clashes of lips and hands on skin. Eleanor can feel herself finally getting tired.

"I'm not going anywhere," he says, so quietly that she barely hears. She wonders if he thinks she's asleep. It's doubtful, but it's a white lie they can probably both live with. "I won't leave you again."

And in the very last moments before the steady beat of his heart lulls her to sleep, she finds herself wanting, more than anything, to believe him.

* * *

 **More Notes:** I am trash.

Annie


End file.
